The biggest threat to Google: It has no idea what you’re doing on mobile apps

11

Mar

2014

Google has definitely benefited from the rise of the mobile web, especially since its Android platform is now by far the most widely used mobile operating system in the world. However, the mobile web has also shown itself to be disruptive to Google’s traditional search business mostly because it’s having trouble collecting data on what users are doing when they’re looking at mobile applications. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has started taking steps to address this vulnerability with a new initiative by developing “an index of the content inside mobile apps and links pointing to that content featured in Google’s search results on smartphones.” This is much easier said than done, of course, since each mobile app is